State of Impunity: Human Rights Abuse of Roma in Romania

State of Impunity: Human Rights Abuse of Roma in Romania

Impunity is an unwritten covenant according to which actions against Roma are not governed by the same rules as those for non-Roma. Where Roma are concerned, violent attack, denial of basic rights, and blatant or subtle racial discrimination as a rule go unpunished or inadequately punished in Romania.

Major episodes of community violence against Roma - deadly pogroms featuring mass arson and mob killing - have resulted in travesties of justice, in those instances where legal action has been taken at all.

Impunity extends to nearly all spheres of social life in Romania: even those Roma spared the indignity and suffering of racially motivated violence live daily in a state of impunity, in practice unprotected from unequal treatment.